GRAHAM – Students at South Graham Elementary School proved you don’t have to travel through time to attend your high school reunion.

The reunions, held separately Friday for students in grades 3-5, taught students about the impact on education and career choices on earning potential. Students researched those topics in advance and, during the event, interviewed others about what careers they chose, how much education their jobs required, and how much money they made.

“We talked a lot about financial literacy,” said Amber Harrington, a counselor at South Graham who organized the activity. She said principles such as this one typically hold true: “More education means more money.”

Victoria Riffe, a fifth-grade student at South Graham, chose to be a veterinarian.

“I had to get a doctorate,” she said, but with earnings of $82,000 a year and doing work she enjoys, all those years in school seemed worth it.

“I have a Yorkie terrier and an Australian Shepherd mix and two cats,” Riffe said, so she knows she likes animals.

Ryan Murphy, also in fifth grade, wants to be a scientist working with machinery and technology. With an engineering degree, he would expect to make $60,000.

Other career goals students mentioned included fashion designer and security guard.

Harrington complimented students when they remembered to act like their future selves: “I love how you are coming in so quietly, just like you are 33 years old.”

Other times, she had to remind them how things will change.

“Please walk,” she would ask students when they ran across the gym floor. “You’re 33.”

Some of the female students wore dresses or blouse/skirt combinations while portraying their adult selves. One male student added a tie to his regular school clothes while another dressed as a soccer player to illustrate his career goal.

Held in the school’s gym, the reunion included punch, snacks and music.

Harrington liked the make-believe aspect of the reunions.

For the most part, she said, students are “not able to pretend any more” because school is “really instructional.”